Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Impending

Sorry for the blog hiatus as of late. We’ve been busy.
Really busy.

For those of you who don’t know, after years of talking
about it Brad and I have decided to become licensed foster parents. Not the pet
kind, either. Fostering actual human children. It’s a pretty big step and one
we do not take lightly.

We had settled on fostering kids aged two and under but,
because of Harper’s age, our agency actually recommended we start with infants.
I guess they really have a need for families who can take newborns because they
require so much care. That works for us because I’m at home full time right now.

For some reason these are posted all over the interior of the Licensing Agency.

The process is a long and arduous one and meant to weed out
those who aren’t fully committed to following through. Steps we have completed thus
far follow:

1.Orientation.
75 or so people (most of whom I would not trust to care for a potted plant let
alone a child) packed into a warehouse-like “conference room” with chipped, pale
–yellow painted cinderblock walls and cement floors for 2+ hours while the
facilitator go through a power-point presentation (read: monologue) covering
fascinating topics such as What is Foster
Care? and What is Abuse?Your only respite; the frequent sounds of
people answering their cell phones because no one bothered to ask the audience
to turn them off before starting and, apparently, it is completely beyond some
people to think to do so themselves. Or you can start filling out a stack of
paperwork that basically allows total strangers to run all sorts of background
checks on you and delve into your personal finances. At the end you get to
(read: are not allowed to leave until you do) pick your licensing agency (read: Mouth of
God) which forevermore dictates and scrutinizes every minute detail of your
previously private home life. Not that we would have it any other way Camelot
Community Care of Hillsborough County (a licensed 501(c) 3 not-for-profit
business) (whom we affectionately refer to as “Big Brother”).

I'm pretty sure this guy was sitting next to us at orientation.

2.Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting (aka MAPP) Classes. We did expedited private lessons because Brad’s schedule would
not allow for the free ones provided by Camelot Community Care of
Hillsborough County (a licensed 501(c) 3 not-for-profit business). In fairness,
we probably had it easier than the people who do the regular 13 week course by
doing it all in 3 sessions over one weekend. Still, they were excruciating. You flip-flop between
hearing heart-wrenching stories about the ugliest abuse imaginable (our
instructor had worked in therapeutic care with older children who had severe
emotional and behavioral problems) to the most tedious details about how which
agencies are responsible for what, to broad, over general reviews of Psych 10 (Hello
Maslow! Hello id, ego and superego!). But
a week after you finish you get a fancy piece of paper with your name on it, so
there’s that.

3.First Consultation Visit.
A social worker comes to your house to hand you another much more in depth
stack of paperwork (ours is about an inch and a quarter thick). And all the
paperwork you filled out in the first round?... it’s back! (of course, they
want you to fill it all out again and send it different places this time). They
also do a quick tour of your house to make sure you don’t have a meth lab
currently in operation and that you are not an (obvious) sociopath. Plus they
give you a radon kit so a state lab can test your house. We totally passed! Yay
us! (I mean we passed the sociopath thing. We’re waiting to hear back about the
radon. Fingers crossed!)

Just fill this out and return it to our office within the week.

Steps we still have to complete (Please note that these are
the steps that I know of. It is very possible that additional steps exist that
I have not yet been made aware) :

1.Fill Out
Inch Thick Stack of Paperwork and Return to Camelot Community Care of
Hillsborough County (a licensed 501(c) 3 not-for-profit business). This is
not as easy as it sounds. Besides the little hiccup we are dealing with now
(which I will discuss in depth in a future post) you are required to list specific references (i.e. two neighbors,
your boss, etc.) who are then sent packets of their own to fill out. The trick
is that the references we list must complete
and return their own packets or else we don’t get licensed. No pressure,
though.

2.Health
Inspection. It doesn’t sound so bad but for the fact that an actual Health
Inspector will come out and give our house the white glove treatment. I have
been forewarned that ridiculous hoops we are required to jump through include keeping
all medications and cleaning products under actual lock and key, installing
fire alarms in every bedroom (although we already have one in our hallway and
the alarms, once installed, will literally be in a 3½ foot radius of each
other), making sure that no item of
food has an expiration date that has passed (Hominy? Canned mackerel? I honestly
don’t even remember buying this stuff.), having screens made to fit our
antiquated and pre-standard sized windows so no baby can fall out (Who opens
their windows in Florida?!?!?! Seriously, the weather is terrible here!), and my personal favorite, drawing a blueprint of our house with all fire
escapes clearly marked and then laminating and posting a copy to the door of each
bedroom so that any pre-ambulatory infant in our care will be able to find
their way out of the house in the event of fire.

The health inspector gives these out for FREE! And liberally!

3.Make a Safety
Plan. I’ll get into this in a future post, after I have calmed down. But in the meantime you can picture me shaking my fist at
the heavens while exclaiming, “Arrrggghhhh!”.

4.Get Fingerprinted.
Easy enough.

5.Health
Exams. For Brad and me to confirm we are healthy enough to be caretakers.

7.Second
Home Consultation Visit. To confirm we’ve righted all the wrongs discovered
in the first home consultation visit.

8.Officially
Become Licensed Foster Parents! As exciting as this is, it’s tragic to know
that we have been told to expect to receive a call the day we receive our licensing
because there are so many kids in the system.